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Terry Malloy, a former middle-weight boxer, (played by Marlon Brando), speaks to his brother, Charlie, in the back of their car in the 1950s movie, On the Water Front, it is clear that his reflections express regret for not taking more risks during the first half of life.

Terry now works at the docks of Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), the corrupt boss who exploits the desperation of day laborers. What Terry sees at the docks repulses him.

In an economically-depressed environment, much like our own climate, many are out of work, more gather by the docks each morning hoping to secure work for that day than can be hired, placing Johnny Friendly and his forces in a position to capitalize on their hungry situation. Those who complain of the working conditions or wages one day don’t work the next day, or are placed in harm’s way. Consequently, most tolerate being abused.

Still, Terry doesn’t see how he might make a bigger contribution in this situation than he ever could as a famous boxer—one who sought his own fame and profit over a meaningful life. When our value depends on making an impression rather than contributing great things in our community, we can grow dispirited, without heart and hope.

Here’s an example of the conversation of egoic-regret, rancor, blame and his current feelings of ordinariness.

Charlie: “Look, kid, I – how much you weigh, son? When you weighed 168 pounds you were beautiful. You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast.”

Terry: “It wasn’t him, Charlie, it was you! Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, ‘Kid, this ain’t your night. We’re going for the price on Wilson.’ You remember that? ‘This ain’t your night!’ My night! I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charlie, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn’t have to take them dives for the short-end money.”

Charlie: “Oh I had some bets down for you. You saw some money.”

Terry: “You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it. It was you, Charlie.”

Though this is a work of fiction, it has great resonance with many of us. Sometimes we blame others for our despair or resign ourselves to the smallest version of ourselves to avoid embarrassment, failure, discomfort or ridicule.

Clients in search of life direction (especially after age forty) often wonder what they might have been had they only applied themselves in school or after college. Instead, they chose the easier, softer, safer way; the way of their peers or the “familiar” way—the choices their family-of-origin thought was more impressive or worse, practical.

Famous dancer Martha Graham reminds us that we must listen to our deepest calling, the truth of who we are and bring this authenticity (our being) into the world of doing. She writes,

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique…. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.” ~ Martha Graham

Before we can affirm, even authorize the next stage in our lives, we need to affirm the first half, no matter what choices we have made or have not made when we were younger.

So many of us find ourselves moving as fast as bumble bees in search of honey–seeking that golden ring of “better than the present.” Pausing and reflecting, as Socrates reminds us to do for a “life worth living,” can be a way to turn around unrewarding habits of regret and despair for creating a more enlivening future.

It’s especially heart-warming—especially on Labor Day—to know that Terry, eventually wakes up to his true potential. He comes to see that his struggle for fame could morph into something more useful not only for himself but for those around him. He uses his heart to give him the guts to organize his peers to stand up to their corrupt bosses thus enabling them all to receive better working conditions and more-adequate pay.

How might we turn our lives, and our sites for income, toward a more worthy and rewarding focus? Don’t we all have “bigger fish to fry” than our own personal profit/ego?

It can be a challenge to think of the good of the whole when we’re feeling financially desperate or personally despairing about a less-than-ideal past. My motto is much like the book by Martha Sinetar, Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow. I say, Do What You Love to do for others, the Money Will Follow.

What you love to do for others needn’t be a form of martyrdom. As Harold Thurman Whitman says: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive!”

What do you love to do for others that brings you the most joy? Do that and I promise you a rich and enlivening future beyond your wildest dreams.

Keep your mind open, experiment, and let me know how it goes. If you need my support to hang in there in this experiment, please contact me and we’ll see what we can create together.

Life Design Unlimited

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I've always loved Disney's Little Mermaid!

I've always loved Disney's Little Mermaid!

I’ve been doing a fair amount of reflecting on the role of social media in the lives of mid-life adults—the age group of my coaching clients. Though there are multiple online networking sites, the two biggest ones being Facebook and MySpace, I’m focusing on Facebook because “older people” are the fastest growing users of this particular social medium, whereas MySpace continues to be dominated by teens.

According to online journal, ITbusiness, in the first few months of 2009, “Facebook gained more Gen Xers and Baby Boomers to its membership ranks with working aged adults (26-59) seeing the biggest age demographic boost of any in North America….” And, according to Paul Briand of The National Examiner, even more staggering is that since the first of the year, “the 35-44 category grew by 51 percent and 45-54 grew by 47 percent.” Wasn’t this medium something that teens lived on like we use to live on the telephone? What could adults possibly want from this vehicle? Do we use it to monitor what our kids are doing or to make sure none of their Facebook “friends” look older than 16?

A complaint issued to me by email from one of my coaching clients was this, she writes, “My friends never share themselves on Facebook, they simply take those inane quizzes and invite me to do the same. I mean, don’t they have lives anymore, don’t they have something to share with me that’s relevant or at least personal?”

Taking these inane Facebook Quizzes – some created by FB members themselves – may be nothing more than a search for identity in a way that’s more fun than some traditional personality profiler like The Meyers-Briggs or the 1930’s mental health test The MMPI. From my experience, there’s nothing a midlifer wants more than a combination of more fun and more clarity about what’s to come in this next phase of life. It’s no wonder Facebook has so many people taking these quizzes; many of us are as unclear about what’s next as we were when we were teenagers.

The difference is that now we have so many more experiences to draw upon when deciding “what we might be when we grow up.”

If my hunch is right, these quizzes may not just be a fun way to “share” yourself on FB, they may be an impish way of inventing who you might be in a free-for-all forum where nobody gets hurt.

What I’ve discovered is that re-inventing yourself in a playful way has great appeal after a loss of some kind, i.e., the kids have left you with an empty nest, you’ve been asked for a divorce, were fired or are in desperate need for a different kind of work.

I’ve found there are at least seven key things that help you uncover “what’s next” in the second half of life and goofy Facebook quizzes can be an off-beat way to let your soulfulness guide you.

Lesson #1: Listen to Your Inner Guide. Take the quiz: “What are your five favorite ways to relax when you’re alone?”

My experiment with meditation began just after my husband left me, a doctoral student living in Princeton, in his newfound commitment to “find himself” on the other coast. I kept hearing this little voice inside my head say, “slow down and listen to what you really want.” Like most people, I ignored this seemingly impractical request. After all, I had five jobs and was trying to graduate with my doctorate by May—just four months away.

As that voice grew louder, it became clear that I was feeling depleted of having anything creative to say and I didn’t know how I was going to pull off my commitments with integrity. I eventually became willing to take a free introductory course in Mindfulness Meditation—a Buddhist practice that simply fosters insight and compassion for self and others.

Lesson #2: Put Your Wildest Desires Out There. Take the quiz: “If I could switch lives with any famous person, I’d pick these top five.”

Some people know what they’d love to do with their lives when in midlife transition but many more of us are afraid we’ll be a laughing stock if we share this with loved ones and friends. This may be hard to believe but the biggest naysayers in are lives are often those closest to us. They don’t even have to be jealous or mean spirited, they just have to care for us in an unhelpful way, the way that conveys, “I just don’t want you to humiliate yourself and then live a life of regret.”

When you take these little quizzes on Facebook, they can be one way, a harmless way, to “get out there.” As Opera Diva Beverly Sills warns us, “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.”

Lesson #3: Be Selective When Sharing Your Desires. Take the quiz: “If I could ask advice of famous experts, I’d pick these top five.”

Picking people who will join you in seeing your greatness can be tricky. As I said above, don’t look to your inner circle—they’re way too close to you and your own self-doubt and may even have contributed to it, indirectly, due to their desires for security.

Take my ex-husband (please!): a superbly brilliant professor of International Relations, speaks four languages, publishes about a book a year, but tends to avoid risks that might make him “look foolish”—any sport, dancing or other form of playing in public or alone. When I told him that I wanted a to be an inspirational columnist and life coach like Martha Beck, a monthly essayist for Oprah Magazine, he said, “Oh my God, Jenn, you have got to be kidding me! You will never get another job in academia if you do that!”

Your experiences may be much different than mine—and I hope they are—but if not, reach for a mentor or life direction coach (like myself) if you want to really hear and follow your desires. Go to those who see your essence and believe in your ability to try, fail, try, fail and get up and try again. As the Japanese phrase nanakorobiyaoki says, “Fall down seven times, get up eight.”

Lesson #4: Have Faith or Find Someone Who Does. Take the quiz: “Among the super powers in Marvel Comic Books, which one are you?”

Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re right.” I believe you can, of course, but if you don’t believe this, please find someone who does and borrow their faith in your capacity for self-invention. My mentors, authors Valerie Young, Barbara Winter and Barbara Sher, all believe that isolation is a dream killer.

Barbara Sher in her recent book, Refuse to Choose!, believes we can simply guess what we want to be and feel it out in practice. She says, be an investigator. Dream of at least 10 possible ways of earning a living, gather more information at a library, volunteer, check out any profession by interviewing others.

Sher was speaking at a workshop recently and saying how deep down inside we all know what we want. “When someone says they don’t know what they want,” she said, “what they really mean is they don’t think that what they want is possible.” We all need allies who believe in us.

Lesson #5: Never Give Up! Take the Quiz: “Which Greek Mythical Hero/Heroine Would You Be?”

Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent book, Outliers, speaks of people who by a crystallization of circumstances became movers and shakers during their particular moment in history—people like Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Rosa Parks, Yo Yo Ma, and Tiger Woods. One thing these people have in common is their passion for mastery and, according to Gladwell’s findings, have given their particular love at least 10,000 hours of attention before they became famously proficient.

So where would you rather be, in your rut or onto what’s next? To step into the unknown it requires that you step outside your comfort zone. As my friend Patrick Snow says, “If you want what others have, you must do what others have done to get where they are.” Praying or believing in the “Law of Attraction” is fine but action is also necessary. If you are willing to take small steps, even try a new behavior that challenges you by just one degree, you’ll be building up what you want to see complete some day. I say, “Do things the way ants do things, one small gesture at a time.” Which leads us to our next lesson…

Lesson #6: Start Where You Are. Take the quiz: “What Does Your Birth Date and Time Say About You?”

My favorite teacher and Buddhist Abbess Pema Chodron wrote a book about 15 years ago called, Start Where You Are. After raising her kids, she felt bereft of purpose and confused by her husband’s newfound hobbies that often took him away from home. On one weekend, she came home only to find him in bed with a female friend of theirs. In shock and full of rage, Chodron threw a very expensive 14th-century Ming vase on the floor.

Within a few months she started studying with a Tibetan Lama Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He gave her techniques for cultivating compassion for herself and for her (now former) mate. He told her, “There is nowhere to go, nothing to do, nowhere to hide. Simply start where you are.” She responded by saying, “I just can’t wait for this transition period to pass!” He said with authority, “My dear, all life is transition.”

All compassion-centered meditation begins with the present—we breathe in that very thing we wish were not so. Befriending ourselves and actually feeling our emotions, versus just analyzing them, is the way through. Difficult or delightful emotions are always passing through us.

Finally, and perhaps said another way…

Lesson #7: Receive the Gift of the Present. Take the quiz: “If the end of the world were near, which five things would you appreciate the most?”

In 2005, when I was in between jobs and without the label of “professor” or “psychologist,” I was bereft of purpose and felt like an oyster without a shell. I had no idea just how reliant I was on my “white collar” title until I was without it. I suffered many sleepless nights worsened by isolation and self-pity. One night, I sat straight up around 2:00 a.m. with the gift of this particular awareness: “Jennifer, unless you can be grateful for the first half of life, the second half will not be an improvement.”

Sometimes gratitude is difficult to feel, but the good news is, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to feel grateful, you just need to practice appreciating what you have: life, friends, family, a working body, a roof and daily nourishment, etc. Gratitude is the gift that keeps on giving. Tallying up the gifts within your present experience will make any future success all the more profound.

These seven habits are core practices I use myself and share with others. If you have ones you’d like to share with readers, pass them along to me through this blog.

About the Author

Jennifer Manlowe is a speaker and an award winning author of seven helpful books—all available on her website. She is also a life direction counselor and certified book publishing coach working with individuals and groups online and in person. Become her fan on Facebook or follow her on Twitter!

To read more articles about how to find work that you love, go to Manlowe’s website.

It never hurts to dream big!

It never hurts to dream big!


“Getting stuck in the wrong career is like a horror movie where I’ve been buried and no one can hear my screams!” ~ Barbara Sher

I’m not sure which is worse hating the job you’re in, (perhaps sneaking time at work to find another job), or looking for a job, any job, just as long as it pay the bills.

Even though many people are feeling the pinch of living in an economic recession, including the thousands who’ve been laid off, there are more people than you would think actually deciding to make career changes. Women, three-to-one, are starting their own business and both men and women are choosing careers that feel more rewarding, more meaningful or at least more in sync with who they really are.

Few people these days are hankering to break into the corporate sector for happiness or job security. More often they feel “happiness” promises are marketing ploys and “job security” is an oxymoron. When we meet they often ask, “Can you help people who don’t know what it is they want to be when they grow up?” or they say, “I’ve been working so hard at keeping this lousy job – even my coworkers constantly complain – I can’t think straight about what I would do if I were to be laid off.”

One of my favorite questions to ask my career-coaching clients who feel lost but dying to do something different is this: “If you received 40 million dollars (tax free) every 12 months, from now until your death, what would you do with your days? What would you do with your time just for fun?”

Another question I ask is this: “If you were told you have 12 hours to live and it was midnight, what would you regret never having done?”

Not everyone believes you can make a living doing what you love to do for others. For instance, the authors of Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life, Spencer Johnson and Kenneth Blanchard, beat to death their message of “following the cheese (money?)” – as a metaphor for being willing to go with the flow of your times, follow the trends of your current cultural moment if you want to make a living. They wrote, “You’ll be wondering who moved YOUR cheese if you don’t keep following the scent of potential profit. Mice know how to do this.”

Perhaps these Blanchard and Johnson were operating from a “rat race” mentality. If profit comes before people, you’re more likely to be awfully lonely, unsatisfied and stuck in a horror movie of sorts—what Buddhists call a karmic hell realm (born of the seeds you’ve sewn by greedy choices).

Today’s happier income generators seems to be more willing to create a livelihood based on what energizes them. As my stand-up comic friend says, “If it ain’t fun, I’m not going to be doing it for long.” This sentiment seems to be the case more often than not when people take or keep a job because it pays well or well-enough. Truth be told, they are slowly dying inside and their loved ones can feel it. Is the pay off worth it?

Can you imagine thinking of your work as fun? Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, Inc. claims: “If earning our living is what we spend most of our time doing, don’t you think it’s worth finding the kind of work that feeds your soul? Keep searching, it’s worth it.” I often share with my clients the discovery that I’ve made over and over: “Entrepreneurs are the true creators of security—especially if the measurement is satisfaction for work well done.”

Do not think you’ll be able to uncover your “calling” in no time – especially if your family members are freaking out about your depleted bank account(s). What’s required is a willingness to stay open and in action about gathering data and experience. Jumping right into the pool is not only a must, it’s a plus to keep you feeling the momentum that comes when you experiment with what works and what feels like work.

Making a transition doesn’t always move in smooth or linear ways. It can feel like e-Harmony or Match.com – there is rarely a “just right” feel right from the start. Just like Goldilocks, you might have to try a lot more porridge than you’d prefer in order to uncover what feeds you in a satisfying way.

For many of my clients, an exploration phase simply consists of gathering information, networking with Biznik events, looking at what successful entrepreneurs do to create their success, and seeing what you have to offer that continues to be interesting.

A good thing to remember is what my friend and mentor Barbara Winter says, “The business an entrepreneur starts with is rarely the one she or he finishes with.” As James, one of my clients in International Technological Sales, said,

“After working at Smith Barney in International accounts, I was afraid I’d never be able to keep up our family’s lifestyle if I shifted gears. When I started out, I wanted something less burdensome, I was tired of working from seven in the morning to eleven at night, being on call due to time differences, and worrying about getting woken up in the middle of the night and having to work the next day. I mean, I couldn’t even have breakfast with my family or walk the girls to the bus stop as my wife could do.

“I felt I was missing out on the very family I worked so hard to support; what was the point? So I started looking into exploring other possibilities. One of the places I had liked in the past was in Dubai.

Though I hated my work at the time, I loved the cultural diversity and how well my family was treated. I figure if I’m skillful in sales and international relations, there are hundreds of other ways I can put that to work in my own business. I’m just scared and I need someone to support and encourage me as I experiment.”

As James experience foreshadows, the experimental method of finding a better fit in work doesn’t necessarily entail guarantees or a nice orderly sequence of steps in which one side project leads logically to the next. Real work is involved when one wants to make a transition.

Calling up past acquaintances, interviewing happy entrepreneurs, attending events that interest you, putting yourself around people you admire and would love to work with, can be ways of supporting your experiments. But the trend is clear, small wins may be scattered, but what really matters is that they move in the same general direction—away from the stifling situation in which we find ourselves wanting to escape.

So much of the “right fit” is born of lots of little actions that can move you into more rewarding relationships (financially and emotionally). Just like finding a wonderful companion can happen out of the blue or by dating lots of toads — but certainly won’t be likely if you stay in your familiar comfort zone (rut).

As George Eliot tells us, “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” Why not start inventing where you might feel greater happiness. It can start with a guess. What helps me is to do that which brings me aliveness, because I believe that’s what the world needs, don’t you?

Jennifer Manlowe, founder of Life Design Unlimited<</b, is a life direction counselor and certified publishing coach helping people step out to authorize their lives. Her books can be found at AuthorizeU.com,

Learn more about the author, Jennifer Manlowe, PhD, CPC.

You may have heard of best-selling author Martha Beck through her advice column in Oprah Magazine or through her many books: Expecting Adam, The Joy Diet, Leaving the Saints, Finding Your North Star, or Four Day Win–all available at my favorite independent bookstore Powell’s BooksPsychology Today, NPR and USA Today consider Martha “the best known Life Coach in America.” Beck is a very straightforward writer who believes each person has an “inner-compass” and has available to them “limitless possibilities” to help them locate their “just right” lives.   

I have envied Martha Beck for a long time and was motivated to choose the profession of “Life Design Coach” because of her own courage to do so. At present, she now calls herself a “personal trainer” saying, “I work with healthy people to help them achieve maximum fitness–that is, well-being and quality of life.” After being professors, both Martha and I chose to forego the prestige of upper-crust academia as well as to abandon our restrictive and misogynous religions’-of-origin.

Both of us have conducted research in China and–in our advice giving–we tend to use the three great Chinese philosophies of Daoism, Buddhism and, Confucianism (with a feminist slant). Just like Beck, I received my graduate degree from an Ivy League School in the early 1990s and published research that was focused on women, social-psychology and religion.

It seems that we were “separated at birth” because of our pasts, because we both like to write helpful books, and because we each regularly publish essays offering personal and practical advice. But enough about our common threads in the great garment of life. It is more important to convey the unique messages of her latest book, Steering by Starlight.

Steering by Starlight, according to its introduction, is about “finding and following the life you were meant to live: your highest and happiest possible destiny.” The theory that Beck uses is much like the multitude of helpful books on business and self-help shelves. She assumes, along with much Ancient Greek and Indian Philosophy, that there exists a fundamental purpose to everyone’s life and believes that we all have a  particular dharma (in an Indian-philosophical sense). If we ignore this elemental calling (or dharma) we will be thwarted.

When I say “thwarted” I mean we will feel “ill at ease” until we honor our “true selves” or our “innate destiny”–something that will forever follow us, haunt us, and hunt us down until we honor its mandates.

I can see why Beck left behind her position as a sociology instructor at Harvard University because her hope-filled theories would be critically eviscerated at any academic conference.

Why? Because Beck’s fundamental beliefs would be considered totalizing, essentialist, simplistic and a typical example of the naively Western grand narrative in a Postmodern (“pomo”) sense.

The great 20th-century French sociologist/philosopher–Michel Foucault–would shame Beck for mimicking the homogenizing, colonizing and mono-mythic paradigms of the uniquely-American project called the “Human Potential Movement” (HPM).

To wit:  HPM was a superbly optimistic movement that arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and was formed around the concept that humans could cultivate their “extraordinary potential.”  Its advocates believed that this buried treasure lay largely untapped in most people. The movement took as its premise that in discovering, developing and releasing one’s inner potential she/he could experience an exceptional quality of life filled with simplicity, happiness, creativity and abundant fulfillment. 

Why would Foucault reject such an optimistic theory? In brief, (and if he were alive), he would accuse Beck for proffering “a reductionistic fantasy” that assumes humans could be hygienic individuals who live unaffected by their surroundings. He would mock the romantic idea that people, by muscular will alone, would be able to “throw off” the multiple cultural influences operating within and all around them. If readers are interested in learning more about Foucauldian frameworks, I’ll offer these in another book review (I promise)!

But, if you must read an alternative to this common (reductionistic) mistake in career-advice literature, read my very favorite business book this year called Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career by a very plain-speaking French sociologist and philosopher named Herminia Ibarra. 

Like Foucault, Ibarra does not subscribe to the fashionable belief in pop-psychology, i.e., that there is a singular treasure (or self) within all of us that will point us to the work we were meant to do. Rather, she urges readers to experiment and even play with their identities–which she says, are always multiple and naturally morphing according to whatever social-context or in which ever job they find themselves.  

For Ibarra, such multiplicity need not be “read” pathologically nor must it cause a baffling crisis of identity. Rather, if accepted, this fluidity of “self” can be freeing, relationally-responsive, dynamic, intimate and spontaneously-inventive.

Even though Martha has abandoned her “pomo” philosophies, I find her work unique and quite forward-thinking when she turns to the latest research in psychiatry, neurology and related fields for the ruts we can return to and the ways we might change these phenomena.

Too, Beck writes in a way that will speak to anyone with a ninth-grade education–the target audience, in terms of literacy, of the average person who buys self-help books. For instance, she keeps her writing teacherly and repetitive; she identifies and reiterates three simple stages along the vocational path to recapturing a satisfying life that include:

* “the stargazer” a metaphor that helps readers understand why it’s so easy to lose themselves in an endless quest for self-knowledge; she offers strategies for sighting their “North Star” (a trope of her earliest career book and career workbook called, Finding Your North Star);

* “the mapmaker” simile used to evaluate one’s unbearable situation in order to plot a different course for the future;

* “the pathfinder” which explores the “adventures” or trials that may be encountered as one travels along their ever-challenging, new life course.

Whether one is seeking better relationships, more focused career direction, physical fitness or to create a more harmonious lifestyle, Steering by Starlight’s stories, experiential references and up-to-date, neuro-scientific evidence will guide HPM believers to “actualize their human potential,” uncover their own “inner compass,” and perhaps, find their way in the world.

Note: Even though I may sound a little sarcastic in this review, I appreciate the courage, humor, and Beck’s approachable framework; I use her framework often as a creative career consultant, in my own Life Design Publishing business as well as in my writing.

What do you think about your own potential? Are you cynical about change or are you hopeful about releasing possibilities for vocational transformation? P.S. You might want to order another helpful book for those seeking wisdom for those “in transition” called:  Polishing the Mirror: 90 Days to Vocational Clarity  Order Now.